


This is How We Heal

by rhoswenmahariel (salutationtothestars)



Category: Dragon Age (Comics), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fix-It, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 18:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3738403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salutationtothestars/pseuds/rhoswenmahariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maric comes home, after capture and torture and a death they'd thought was inescapable, and he and Loghain begin to learn how to understand each other again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is How We Heal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenofEden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenofEden/gifts).



> Essentially fix-it fic for the end of the comics, this piece assumes that Maric did not die at the end of Until We Sleep, but survived, albeit injured and frail, that Loghain survived the Fifth Blight, and that they were romantically together in the past. The rest is relatively self-explanatory.

The differences in the Maric he remembers and the Maric he knows now are enough to keep Loghain grounded. He would never give up this second chance at something he is afraid to admit is happiness, not for anything in the world, but he knows himself too well. If he had permitted himself to imagine Maric coming home, after all these years, it would have been as the man he was. He would have waltzed in as if no time had passed, perhaps a little grayer, with a few more scars, but himself.

The Maric that came back to him is not the same one who left. Loghain does not want anything else - in fact, he is grateful, in a way. It keeps him from thinking of his miraculous return as a trick of the Fade or a demon, finally intent on dragging him down where nothing else had ever succeeded. He wishes he could do more, of course, hates that Maric has to build himself back up from nothing, but being there to help is the greatest gift he has ever been given. He isn't sure who he should thank.

Maric moves a little easier now, at least, only using his walking stick when he's tired or stiff. He smiles more, but he is still quiet, and sometimes Loghain will walk in a room to find him weeping. The first time he sees it, it makes him deeply uncomfortable. In the years after Rowan died, he felt much more under control, as if he knew how to guide Maric from the brink of his own destruction, but now he is completely at a loss. He can't wipe away a decade of torture and memories.

Instead, he settles for moving slowly across the room and placing a hand on Maric’s back, just under his neck. Maric starts, turns to look at him with red-rimmed blue eyes, and twitches his mouth in an attempt at a smile. "I’m sorry," he says, wiping at his eyes. "I don't even know why i'm crying. I must look ridiculous." Loghain doesn't know what to say, never has, but he waits there until the sniffling stops and Maric leans into his stomach, exhausted.

It becomes easier, after that. Where he was once almost afraid to touch him outside of their shared bed, in respect either to his current frailty or in remembrance of their old necessary rules, he begins to do so more freely. Loghain presses Maric’s hand gently in their ruin of a garden, talking to him about planting techniques he remembers his father employed. He comes up behind Maric as he sits and strokes at his hair, allows their knees to knock under the little table, and it is more than he ever could have hoped for.

They are still themselves, of course. Loghain loses his temper, and Maric lies about his pains, and in moments of weakness, they fight about things long since passed. The day Maric brings up Cailan, Loghain storms out of the house and does not come back for hours, guilt gnawing at his insides more strongly than the anger. When he finally goes home again, afraid of finding Maric hurt or helpless somewhere, unattended while he was off licking his wounds, he combs the house through twice before thinking to check in their bedroom.

Maric is, by all appearances, no more than an unmoving lump underneath their blankets. His voice is muffled as he says, "That was unworthy of me. I didn't mean to hurt you." Loghain steps out of his boots before he sinks onto the mattress, half meaning to correct him. Maric did intend to wound, in the moment, and he should have done.

“It was less than I deserve,” he replies. “I should have died, that day at the Landsmeet, for what I did to your son.”

“A traitor’s death.” Maric shuffles until he faces Loghain, his face honest and his eyes red again. It breaks Loghain to see it, more than he would ever admit. “You aren’t a traitor.”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he hunkers down on his side of the bed, slipping under the blankets with a sigh he doesn’t mean to let loose. Maric presses close and puts an arm around his waist, his accumulated body heat nearly warm enough to be discomforting against the chill on Loghain’s skin. They lay there for a while, Maric’s free hand settled in the middle of his chest, Loghain’s in that spot on his back at the top of his spine. Everything descends into an easy silence, the light through their curtains dimming until it is gone.

“I don’t want you to forgive me,” Loghain murmurs, after what seems to be forever. He thinks Maric might be asleep, but he says the words anyway. They’re more for himself, an acknowledgement of a truth he never thought he would have to confront, and even then it pains him to admit it.

To his surprise, Maric shifts, stretching up to leave a kiss on the underside of his chin. Loghain thinks that’s the end of it, that the kiss is Maric’s absolution, but he twists his fingers into his shirt, presses his head to Loghain’s heartbeat, and says, “I lived through the Fifth Blight, Loghain. I may not have seen the Archdemon itself, but from what I gather, not many did.”

Loghain doesn’t follow, pulls back to fix him with a frown, but Maric hasn’t finished.

“The witch,” he says slowly, “was wrong.”

It hits him more painfully than any blow ever has. He can hear the grizzled old woman’s words just as easily now as he could then, her promise of betrayals – “each time worse than the last.” Those words haunted him for years, even into what he’d thought was Maric’s death. And Maric is right. She was wrong.

They make love that night. It’s slow going, and there are frequent pauses for Maric to breathe and check that nothing hurts too badly, but it’s good. Better than good, Loghain thinks, closing his eyes as Maric kisses his temple. He feels again that he should be thanking someone, Andraste or the Maker – there is nothing he could have done to deserve this. Unsure, however, and overcome, he stays silent. When Maric wipes at the surprising wetness on Loghain’s cheeks, a fond smile illuminating his face brighter than any sun, Loghain thanks him, instead.

**Author's Note:**

> "This is how we heal.  
> I will kiss you like forgiveness. You  
> will hold me like I’m hope."  
> -Mouthful of Forevers; Clementine von Radics


End file.
